Michael Kownacky

We’re returning to La Scala for this week’s Sunday Opera (7/6 3:00 p.m.) and Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” The libretto, based on a verse-novel by Alexander Pushkin about a jaded, cynical, and selfish Onegin whose actions disrupt the lives of just about everyone around him.

If you hadn’t noticed, July just happened recently. To welcome it on this week’s Dress Circle (7/6 7:00 p.m.), we’re looking at some of the musicals that have opened in New York this month. We don’t have an exhaustive list, but we were still able to amass a baker’s dozen of songs that span 157 years of musical history.

It might be difficult for you to get to Milan right now, but this week’s Sunday Opera (6-29 3:00 p.m.) is going to be going there for the beginning of a series of operas from La Scala. We’re beginning with Giuseppe Verdi’s “La forza del destino” (“The Force of Destiny”) in a production starring Anna Netrebko, Ludovic Tezier, and Brian Jagde.

We’re going where the “neon lights are bright” and “there’s magic in the air” on this week’s Dress Circle (6/29 7:00 p.m.) as we look at songs about Broadway from stage and screen. Even though a great deal of music has been written about being on the stage and theatres, we decided to limit it to only those songs that expressly mention “Broadway” in their titles.

Umberto Giordano wrote 18 operas in all, but only two of them are produced with any regularity: “Fedora” and “Andrea Chenier.” On this week’s Sunday Opera (6/22 3:00 p.m.), we’ll be looking at two of his other operas that, although not unknown, aren’t produced nearly as often, and this came about after a conversation with one of our long-time listeners in Bethlehem, PA. Those operas are “La cena delle beffe” (“The Jester’s Supper”) and “Madame Sans-Gene. (“Madame Carefree”).

We’re celebrating the career of composer/lyricist William Finn, whom we lost in April, on this week’s Dress Circle (6/22 7:00 p.m.) with thirteen songs from a variety of his often autobiographical musicals.

We’re turning to another opera that’s been forgotten although it was quite popular when it premiered in 1920 on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/15 3:00 p.m.), and as a bonus, it’s written in the Basque idiom. It’s Spanish composer Jesus Guridi’s “Amaya.” Guridi (1886 – 1961) played an important role as a Spanish / Basque composer who wrote operas and zarzuelas as well as orchestral, piano, choral, and organ works.

We decided to get everyone prepared for summer on this week’s Dress Circle (6/15 7:00 p.m.), since it officially begins on June 20th. To do this, we’ve turned to “summer songs” from thirteen diverse musicals.

Victor Hugo’s novel “Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua” has been used for several operatic adaptations with Amilcare Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” probably being the best known, but on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/8 3:00 p.m.), we’re looking at a different treatment by librettist Angelo Zanardini in Alfredo Catalani’s “Dejanice” which had its premiere in 1883.

This week’s Dress Circle (6/8 7:00 p.m.) is a return to one of our favorite topics, “Involuntary Musical Imagery” otherwise known as stuck song syndrome, sticky music, and cognitive itch, or, as the Germans call them, orhwurm. Of course, their earworms. Those pesky songs that you love to hate. You hear them, and they stay with you for a very long time afterwards.